Gameboy Advance: Gpsp Problem

[Husky.Gnoll]

This issue seems to pop up on certain games, mostly games that you time clock system, whenever I start a game in goes to the Game's title then I press a button and the it goes back to the GBA logo. (not supposed to happen. Does anyone how to fix this?

 

[Audi]

this happens to me for mario golf. but pretty sure its the rom emulator combo.

 

[Husky.Gnoll]

this happens to me for mario golf. but pretty sure its the rom emulator combo.

The problem is that the rom works on my PC emulator perfectly, but on the Wiz it does not, so I do know there is something wrong with the emulator.

 

[Exophase]

Some games don't work. You have to be much more specific, ie mention which games are actually broken.

 

[Husky.Gnoll]

Pokemon Ruby, Robopon 2: Cross, Mario Tennis, Yoshi's Island, and all Classic Nes games.

 

[BossRoss]

i get white screened with pokemon emerald and sapphire and i can confirm the classic nes games

 

[absolofdoom]

I think you have to patch the pokemon games so that they don't try to use the clock, if I remember correctly. I'd link to a site with the patches, but some mod might get pissed at me, idk if they think patches are legal or not.

 

[Exophase]

Pokemon games require 128KB flash, if the game_config.txt doesn't reflect it then it has to be modified to do so. gpSP has RTC emulation, but even if it doesn't work you'll just get a message in-game.

The classic NES series does something that makes it not work well with emulators, I don't know specifically what because I haven't tried them. You could try these patches here:

http://gbatemp.net/i...p?download=1872

But I wouldn't advise wasting your time. You're much better off playing them on an NES emulator instead of double emulating them in a crippled environment.

EDIT:

According to an old post by Forgotten (author of VBA):

I posted somewhere about this, but these classic games have 3 different protections in them:

- SRAM detection
- prefetch emulation detection (lacking on current emulators, fixed in VBA CVS)
- cartridge image mirror (which causes the infamous joypad slowdown problems)

So, to get it fully working, you need the save type set to EEPROM, have the current VBA from CVS and have the cartridge image duplicated at least to pass the last protection.

The first and third could be fixed pretty easily in gpSP, although the first would require a setting in game_config.txt because otherwise gpSP would have no idea not to emulate SRAM. That is, unless a search string heuristic is used or something. The second issue seems quite a lot more problematic, depending on what he means exactly. My guess is that the game is writing something to [next_PC] and is relying on the instruction not being overwritten. Detecting this in a recompiler would be pretty doable but supporting it would be very difficult, unless the game doesn't rely on the written value being right later on.

While I am curious to see what it's doing exactly I'm not going to be modifying gpSP, and I doubt notaz will want to write support for any of these things, much less all three. So the only (small) chance is if I did another GBA emulator.

 

[ZeroCorpse]

Add me to the list that can't get Mario Golf to work. It just loops, going from "pick a character" to a game reset, every time.

Bummer, too. That's probably my 2nd-favorite GBA game.

 

[NEIL L]

Some games run zipped but some have to be unzipped to work, does anybody know why this is?
Couldn't they all be ran without unzipping? (All my roms are zipped!)
Cheers, Neil

 

[Exophase]

Some games run zipped but some have to be unzipped to work, does anybody know why this is?
Couldn't they all be ran without unzipping? (All my roms are zipped!)
Cheers, Neil

If the game is too big to fit into RAM like 32MB ones are then you won't be able to run them zipped because then they can't be demand paged in.

 

[NEIL L]

Thanks for the fast reply.
Could a file unzipper be built in?
e.g. When you choose a game to load, you have a choice if you want to run it zipped or unzipped, saving your choice (per game) for next time.
If you want to run it zipped it will load the zip, but if you want it unzipped it will unzip the zip and run it, but on exiting the game it will delete the unzipped file.
Cheers, Neil

 

[Exophase]

Thanks for the fast reply.
Could a file unzipper be built in?
e.g. When you choose a game to load, you have a choice if you want to run it zipped or unzipped, saving your choice (per game) for next time.
If you want to run it zipped it will load the zip, but if you want it unzipped it will unzip the zip and run it, but on exiting the game it will delete the unzipped file.
Cheers, Neil

Probably. I never did such a feature because there are few 32MB ROMs - I figured most people don't even want to play more than a couple of them, meaning you'd use more space to temporarily unzip it than if you kept it unzipped. But it's possible that 16MB ROMs aren't getting fully loaded now either. See what notaz wants to do, I guess.

 

[Deevoh]

I'm having troubles with a few games too. All unzipped.

Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, GTA Advance, Iridion II, Pokemon Emerald, (all US) and a few more don't load (or go back to the gameboy logo).

 

[NEIL L]

I'm having troubles with a few games too. All unzipped.

Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, GTA Advance, Iridion II, Pokemon Emerald, (all US) and a few more don't load (or go back to the gameboy logo).

Try zipping them and give them another go. Some games need to be zipped and some unzipped, hence my previous comment.
Cheers, Neil

 

[Exophase]

Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, and GTA Advance aren't going to work properly. I don't know about Iridion II but I hear it's a problematic game for emulators in general (never tested it personally). Pokemon Emerald needs to be properly present in game_config.txt and NOT being a hacked version probably helps.

 

[Deevoh]

I see, thanks Exophase.
When you mean properly present, what should the entry say?

I've got..

# Pokemon Emerald (E/U)
# I don't know why this has an idle loop when Ruby doesn't....
game_name = POKEMON EMER
game_code = BPEE
vender_code = 01
idle_loop_eliminate_target = 080008ce
flash_rom_type = 128KB

 

[Exophase]

I see, thanks Exophase.
When you mean properly present, what should the entry say?

I've got..

# Pokemon Emerald (E/U)
# I don't know why this has an idle loop when Ruby doesn't....
game_name = POKEMON EMER
game_code = BPEE
vender_code = 01
idle_loop_eliminate_target = 080008ce
flash_rom_type = 128KB

You have to make sure that your ROM actually has that game_name, game_code, and vendor_code stuff. If you go into the menu it should say those things at the top. The important part is that gpSP sees the flash_rom_type line. If the game is hacked then you could have other problems.

 

[Deevoh]

Ah, I can't even tell since it freezes when I try to load the rom. I'm positive it isn't a hacked one either, so I don't know why it isn't working.

 

[Exophase]

Ah, I can't even tell since it freezes when I try to load the rom. I'm positive it isn't a hacked one either, so I don't know why it isn't working.

Look at it in a hex editor. The offsets where those things are stored should be described at the beginning of game_config.txt.