New to the Pandora (PC Engine CD???)

[Aksel]

Interesting little device.


After a bit of effort, I've gotten NES, SNES, Genesis/Megadrive, Atari ST, Amiga, and PSX emulators to run more or less perfectly. But the one that I just cannot seem to work out is the PC Engine. Out of the HuCard games I've tried, roughly half of them worked, but I'm more interested in the CD games. Last I heard, Hu-Go does not support these (is that still true?), so I tried Mednafen. Every CD game I tried (in ISO, CUE, and ZIP format) resulted in nothing but two seconds of black screen and being promptly returned to the selection menu.


Next on the list was Temper. Unfortunately, I couldn't even figure out how to operate this one. Loading a CUE file sends me to a menu with options like "Load new game" and "Restart game" etc... "Load new game" jumps back to the rom selection menu (endless loop), and "Restart game" does nothing, as does "Return to game". Selecting "Swap CD" and then choosing a CUE file results in being booted back to the minimenu. I'm still not sure if this is user error or not.


I read a few things about syscard files, so I messed around with that for a while. Now I have several copies of syscard files in several places for both emulators, but nothing works.


I searched the forums, but couldn't find a straight answer. If anyone has any ideas, please share.

 

[poptart574]

I hope someone helps you out cause


I'm on the same boat.

 

[Exophase]

You need to put the syscard files in the syscard directory in the Temper directory in appdata. The readme in the pnd says more.

 

[johntranter]

First post from a new Pandora owner here--love this little device!!


Mednafen is a little tricky; your problem is almost certainly the CD BIOS files. The directory for the syscard files for Mednafen is:


/pandora/appdata/mednafen/.mednafen/pce_bios/


Notice the hidden ".mednafen" directory; when you're tranferring files, you need to make sure that hidden directories are visible (the directory is already there).


For Temper, the CD BIOS directory is:


/pandora/appdata/Temper/syscards/


Good luck!

 

[Exophase]

Whatever the directory is, Temper should be making it when it's first ran so you don't have to make it yourself.

 

[yoshi41dragon]

This kind of information can also be found in the fact sheets und the emu pack contains the required directory structure for more than 20 emulators...


http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/pandora.cgi?0,0,0,0,5,404


http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/pandora.cgi?0,0,0,0,5,466


Should be a good starting point for new owners.

 

[Aksel]

You need to put the syscard files in the syscard directory in the Temper directory in appdata. The readme in the pnd says more.

I've actually done that already. Unless I have a bad syscard file...

 

[Aksel]

As a side note, Temper is absolutely perfect running the HuCard games. Bloody fantastic.

 

[Exophase]

If you have the syscard file loaded and it's the right name then something could be wrong with your image. Could you paste the contents of the cue and a directory listing?

 

[moxie]

Hm. Do I remember correctly in that Temper has rather strict requirements on the audio encoding? As in, it has to be OGG stereo 44.1khz or something like that? Also present in the readme, in that case (or I might confuse it with something else. If so, ignore me).

 

[Foxgod]

Are your files in WAV format?


Most PC Engine CD games floating around the web have iso,cue and mp3 files or some other audio format.


Mednafen requires all your audio files to be in WAV format.


Look in google for something like pc engine cd wav converter.

 

[yoshi41dragon]

From my experience, Temper is less resource hungry, but also less compatible compared to Mednafen. For instance, Star Parodier hangs after level 1 (when displaying the level end picture). It works fine on Temper Wiz/Caanoo and Mednafen.


I use single cue/iso and cue/bin CD images. They work fine with both emulators.

 

[Aksel]

It fails to run all nine of the CD games I've tried, but here is one such game.


______________________________________________________________________


FILE "Lords of Thunder [sCD][TGXCD1033][Red][1993][PCE][thx-1138-darkwater].bin" BINARY


TRACK 01 AUDIO


INDEX 01 00:00:00


TRACK 02 MODE1/2352


PREGAP 00:03:00


INDEX 01 00:44:65


TRACK 03 AUDIO


PREGAP 00:02:00


INDEX 01 01:34:53


TRACK 04 AUDIO


INDEX 01 03:07:04


TRACK 05 AUDIO


INDEX 01 04:08:70


TRACK 06 AUDIO


INDEX 01 04:38:70


TRACK 07 AUDIO


INDEX 01 05:39:39


TRACK 08 AUDIO


INDEX 01 06:39:30


TRACK 09 AUDIO


INDEX 01 08:38:44


TRACK 10 AUDIO


INDEX 01 09:38:13


TRACK 11 AUDIO


INDEX 01 09:54:23


TRACK 12 AUDIO


INDEX 01 12:53:45


TRACK 13 AUDIO


INDEX 01 17:20:59


TRACK 14 AUDIO


INDEX 01 21:47:57


TRACK 15 AUDIO


INDEX 01 26:15:43


TRACK 16 AUDIO


INDEX 01 30:44:68


TRACK 17 AUDIO


INDEX 01 35:13:35


TRACK 18 AUDIO


INDEX 01 39:41:44


TRACK 19 AUDIO


INDEX 01 44:09:37


TRACK 20 AUDIO


INDEX 01 44:59:20


TRACK 21 AUDIO


INDEX 01 47:57:70


TRACK 22 AUDIO


INDEX 01 50:55:51


TRACK 23 MODE1/2352


PREGAP 00:03:00


INDEX 01 53:55:55


______________________________________________________________________


Directory of D:\pandora\appdata\Temper


05/31/2012 01:23 AM <DIR> .


05/31/2012 01:23 AM <DIR> ..


05/31/2012 01:23 AM <DIR> save_states


05/31/2012 01:42 AM <DIR> config


05/31/2012 01:42 AM <DIR> bram


05/31/2012 01:23 AM <DIR> images


05/30/2012 09:38 PM <DIR> syscards


0 File(s) 0 bytes


Directory of D:\pandora\appdata\Temper\save_states


05/31/2012 01:23 AM <DIR> .


05/31/2012 01:23 AM <DIR> ..


0 File(s) 0 bytes


Directory of D:\pandora\appdata\Temper\config


05/31/2012 01:23 AM <DIR> .


05/31/2012 01:23 AM <DIR> ..


06/01/2012 07:48 AM 528 temper.cf2


1 File(s) 528 bytes


Directory of D:\pandora\appdata\Temper\bram


05/31/2012 01:23 AM <DIR> .


05/31/2012 01:23 AM <DIR> ..


06/01/2012 07:48 AM 8,192 bram.sav


1 File(s) 8,192 bytes


Directory of D:\pandora\appdata\Temper\images


05/31/2012 01:23 AM <DIR> .


05/31/2012 01:23 AM <DIR> ..


0 File(s) 0 bytes


Directory of D:\pandora\appdata\Temper\syscards


05/30/2012 09:38 PM <DIR> .


05/30/2012 09:38 PM <DIR> ..


12/24/1996 11:32 PM 262,144 SYSCARD3.PCE


01/01/2003 04:10 AM 264,496,512 Buster Bros..bin


10/30/2006 03:53 PM 1,135 Buster Bros..cue


12/15/2005 05:34 PM 549,497,760 Cotton - Fantastic Night Dreams.bin


10/19/2006 02:58 PM 1,291 Cotton - Fantastic Night Dreams.cue


12/16/2005 03:19 PM 659,206,800 Dragon Slayer - The Legend of Heroes.bin


10/19/2006 03:05 PM 1,090 Dragon Slayer - The Legend of Heroes.cue


10/10/1998 12:06 PM 569,786,112 Forgotten Worlds.bin


10/30/2006 03:54 PM 1,183 Forgotten Worlds.cue


02/28/2007 12:38 PM 865 Gate of Thunder.cue


02/28/2007 10:14 AM 503,153,952 Gate of Thunder.iso


01/17/2006 07:02 PM 579,224,688 Lords of Thunder.bin


10/19/2006 03:27 PM 1,108 Lords of Thunder.cue


07/14/2003 01:20 AM 559,745,424 Super Air Zonk.bin


10/30/2006 12:17 AM 1,140 Super Air Zonk.cue


09/16/2005 11:26 PM 767,201,232 Ys Book I & II.bin


09/04/2006 09:32 PM 2,802 Ys Book I & II.cue


05/22/2000 05:45 PM 715,047,984 Ys III - Wanderers from Ys.bin


09/04/2006 09:51 PM 1,662 Ys III - Wanderers from Ys.cue


12/24/1996 11:32 PM 393,216 Blazing Lazers.pce


12/24/1996 11:32 PM 524,288 Cadash.pce


12/24/1996 11:32 PM 262,144 Dragon Spirit.pce


12/24/1996 11:32 PM 786,432 Neutopia II.pce


12/24/1996 11:32 PM 393,216 Neutopia.pce


12/24/1996 11:32 PM 524,288 R-Type.pce


02/05/2001 11:23 PM 524,288 Shockman.pce


02/05/2001 11:45 PM 524,288 Soldier Blade.pce


12/24/1996 11:32 PM 524,288 Splatterhouse.pce


12/24/1996 11:32 PM 524,288 Super Star Soldier.pce


29 File(s) 5,172,615,620 bytes


Total Files Listed:


31 File(s) 5,172,624,340 bytes


17 Dir(s) 285,433,856 bytes free

 

[yoshi41dragon]

The file name in the .cue sheet should match the real file name.


And I wouldn't put the CDs and ROMs in the syscard directory (don't know if this causes a problem). Put them in separate directories like roms and cds.

 

[Aksel]

The file name in the .cue sheet should match the real file name.

My goodness...this was actually the entirety of the problem. Hard to believe I overlooked that (especially while posting it).


Works like a charm now. Can't thank all of you enough!

 

[captain_coconut]

Are your files in WAV format?


Most PC Engine CD games floating around the web have iso,cue and mp3 files or some other audio format.


Mednafen requires all your audio files to be in WAV format.


Look in google for something like pc engine cd wav converter.

Mednafen also support ogg format as well for the audio files.

 

[sareks]

Unfortunately neither Temper, nor PCE Emu, nor Mednafen won't play PCE CD Files. Don't know why this doesn't work...

Mednafen and Temper just quit the Emulator when choosing a cd file

PCE Emu says something like "could not open referenced file.... no such file or directory"