GBC: Metal Gear Solid freezes in elevator

[odie]

Hi,

Metal Gear Solid freezes after the elevator starts to move upwards. It's exactly in this situation: https://youtu.be/qOIe1bcWAn0?t=52m48s
I have the latest firmware installed 20180712-302b7c23fa

What could be the issue? What can I do to provide more information to fix this?

Edit: I think the freeze happens when the screen should shake when the elevator stops.

Cheers
odie

[crashoverride]

What can I do to provide more information to fix this?

A copy of the save game before the issue occurs along with directions to reproduce it are required to investigate it.

To get a copy of the save game:
1) Before the issue the occurs, pause the game.
2) Hit the "Menu" button to save the game.
3) Load any other ROM to flush the save game to SD card.
4) Insert the SD card in a PC an navigate to the "odroid/data/" folder. Open the folder for the system being emulated; in this case "gbc".
5) Locate the save game file ({name of the rom].gbc.sav) and upload it somewhere public.
6) Post a link to the save game here in this forum topic along with instructions to reproduce it.

[odie]

Thank you for the great instructions! I uploaded the sav file here: http://odie.sdf.org/mgs.zip

You will find yourself standing in an elevator. Just trigger the right elevator button (red triangle) with button A and wait 2 or 3 seconds.

[crashoverride]

I can reproduce the issue using the provided game save.

[mad_ady]

A bit offtopic, but I'm curious: how are you debugging these kinds of issues? Can you hook-up gdb and analyze a crash? Do you "printf" to serial?

[odie]

I can reproduce the issue using the provided game save.

That's great news! Thanks for looking into it

[crashoverride]

how are you debugging these kinds of issues? Can you hook-up gdb and analyze a crash? Do you "printf" to serial?

It depends on the issue. The gdb will provide a backtrace if its a crash. However, since there is no interactive debugger (and no JTAG), printf is typically used extensively.

[crashoverride]

The nature of this issue is emulation performing an illegal instruction:

Code: Select all

invalid opcode 0xFD at address 0x568F, rombank = 2


Prior to this occurring, a series of invalid mapper writes are made when entering or leaving the elevator:

Code: Select all

MBC_MBC5: invalid write to 0x6a94 (0x0)
MBC_MBC5: invalid write to 0x6a95 (0x0)
MBC_MBC5: invalid write to 0x6a96 (0x0)
MBC_MBC5: invalid write to 0x6a97 (0x0)
MBC_MBC5: invalid write to 0x6a98 (0x0)
MBC_MBC5: invalid write to 0x6a99 (0x0)
MBC_MBC5: invalid write to 0x6a9a (0x0)
MBC_MBC5: invalid write to 0x6a9b (0x0)
MBC_MBC5: invalid write to 0x6a9c (0x0)
MBC_MBC5: invalid write to 0x6a9d (0x0)
MBC_MBC5: invalid write to 0x6a9e (0x0)
MBC_MBC5: invalid write to 0x6a9f (0x0)
MBC_MBC5: invalid write to 0x6aa0 (0x0)
MBC_MBC5: invalid write to 0x6aa1 (0x0)


I originally suspected issues with CPU emulation. This led me to patch some issue reported by CPU test roms, but it did not correct the crash.
http://gbdev.gg8.se/wiki/articles/Test_ROMs

I confirmed MBC5 mapper operation against various source of documentation as well as source code from other GBC emulators. None appear to handle the handle the address range of 0x6a94 - 0x0x6aa1.

If someone has the free time, it would be helpful to know if this issue occurs on the USA version of the game too.

[odie]

Thank you very much for your investigation.

If someone has the free time, it would be helpful to know if this issue occurs on the USA version of the game too.

I'll play the US verion to this point and check if the freeze will occur there, too. If it makes sense, I could try the Japanese version instead.

[crashoverride]

I did find a report of this issue for a different system/emulator. It may be some kind of anti-counterfeit protection in the game.

[odie]

I did find a report of this issue for a different system/emulator. It may be some kind of anti-counterfeit protection in the game.

So you think it might not make any sense to try the US version?

[crashoverride]

Testing the USA versions reduces the probability of a bad ROM dump for the EU version.

If the USA (or any other region) version fails in the same place, then that failure is likely to be part of the expected operation of the title.

[odie]

The game crashes at the same point with the following version: Metal Gear Solid (U) [C][!]

[odie]

I want to play this game so bad that I just bought myself a cartridge. Anyway, it would be great if it would run on the Odroid out of several reasons (Display, Saving). Any chance to get it running?

[odie]

The Japanese version freezes as well

[crashoverride]

Any chance to get it running?

If there is an open source emulator that can run it, I can look for clues in its source code.

[odie]

It works with Visual-Boy-Advance-M 2.1.0.

Here's a link to the binary: https://github.com/visualboyadvance-m/v ... -64bit.zip
Here's the save state: http://odie.sdf.org/mgs2.zip

Thanks again for looking into it.